Obviously this has huge implications for future exploration of the Red Planet, but I was more interested in what the education sector would have to say about it – it’s the result of a long period of scientific research and investigation, so it’s right up their alley. Isn’t it?

A student at the University of Arizona was responsible for finding the initial clues that led to this discovery, so it’s no surprise that they wanted to be involved:

A photo posted by University of Canberra (@unicanberra) on Sep 28, 2015 at 11:33pm PDT

But beyond that, there was very little from any education voices on this story.

I’m surprised that there weren’t more universities and educational institutions getting involved. Obviously very few people knew what the exact details of the announcement were beforehand, but there were still opportunities to be had.

Engineering departments could comment on the technology involved in the discovery, Physics or Astronomy academics could talk about the role of Mars in the next stage of space exploration, and even the English department could suggest a list of five great examples of Mars in literature.

But no-one really did anything. I think this is a shame, as this is an area where universities can really show off their expertise in a specialised, but very popular, field. Maybe next time…

[If you wish you’d made more of this opportunity and you want some advice about how you can build things like this into your overall content strategy, just get in touch.]

There was more than Mars on the internet this week – here’s our top five links from the past few days:

First up, the countdown to Christmas has started. Ellie has some thoughts for your festive communications: